Open House Prep Work is making me feel old

[Kevin]

Open House Prep Work is making me feel old.

But, boy are we ready for the Open House!

Okay, we are much more ready for the Open House than last year.

Kathy Simmons has not only been busy processing orders, but printing, putting together and aphabetizing name bagdes. She also ran around to stores the last few days purchasing the food and materials she'll need to cater V.I.P. Friday. Yum.

I don’t think anybody realizes how much work goes into prepping for this shindig. A few of our volunteers Eric Campion, Chris Guertin, Tony Falzon and Kenny Gunther, along with me and the Palladium Crew, have already done a lot of the heavy lifting.

Eric and Tony got a floor scrubber on Thursday and scrubbed down the entire, 17,000 square foot, warehouse! Eric did most of the driving on that one. Poor Tony, working two jobs, was wiped, but coordinated the operation. Meanwhile, I was helping Kenny and Wayne move and clean furniture upstairs, and Alex vacuumed. Then I was on my hands and knees scrubbing floors, while Kenny and Alex did additional prep and Tony built a couple of fans.

The night before, Julius, Alex, and I spent three hours moving everything we could off the floor and cleared out as much floor space as possible so Tony and Eric could just scrub away. They used so much hot water we ran out!

Friday morning we put everything back in place and shipped out Rifts® D-Bees of North America (including 90 mail orders). Hank was out sick, so we got help shipping from Bill Bailey and Jason Marker. Thanks guys.

Saturday, Julius, Alex, Chris Guertin, Mark Dudley and I will be restacking skids and making the final big moves in the warehouse.

When I wasn't part of that action, I’ve been on my feet the last four days setting up our new “store area” in the warehouse as well as the art and silent auction areas. I’m out of shape so standing on my feet, lifting and moving boxes, scrubbing and cleaning for 12 hours, four days in a row (and a few days last week) have every part of my body aching. Even my fingers and butt cheeks ache! Don’t you hate that?! Ouch.

Ah, but Carmen Bellaire popped in last night, stumbled around in awe, and said, “Wow, Kev, the place looks a lot better than last year. The event is getting better every year, eh?” You betcha!

In fact, we’ve got so much done already, there’s not gonna be much for Josh Hilden, Joe Bergmans or Eric Wujcik to do when they come in early next week. At least not until Thursday when the 50 tables and 450 chairs arrive.

Ah, a convention organizer's work is never done. Gotta go. Chris and the guys should be showing up any time.

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer, Artist and Achy Guy
© Copyright April 28, 2007